


Hunter's Moon

by LadyLoec



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Bonnie Bennett-centric, Bonnie Bennett/Damon Salvatore Feels, Canon Rewrite, Consent Issues, Declarations Of Love, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Gratuitous Smut, Huntress Bonnie Bennett, Love Confessions, POV Alternating, Perceived non-con, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff, Rough Sex, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:08:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28527486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLoec/pseuds/LadyLoec
Summary: Partial rewrite of TVD 7x21: Requiem for a Dream. This picks up when Bonnie tracks Damon to the woods, and he takes a very different approach to helping her fight the Huntress.Angsty porn with plot, featuring Shakespeare in the park, exorcism sex, and too many feelings for it's own good.
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 14
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW for dubcon elements - explicit consent is tricky when there's a vampire-hating death machine at the helm. 
> 
> This is one of 3 Bamon fics that I started while writing Breaking All The Rules, and it has been sat in my 'TBC' pile for longer than I care to admit. Consider it my New Year's Resolution to get them all finished. Hope you enjoy!

"You caught me.” Bonnie - or rather, the Huntress wearing her face - entered the clearing where Damon was sipping from a flask, waiting for her. “That a stake in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" She didn't respond, her facial expression vacant, uncaring. "Gotta say, I'm really feeling the Bonnie the Vampire Slayer look. Smokin' hot. All you're missing is the leather-jacket-wearing reformed bad boy vampire sidekick. Oh, wait..." Bonnie threw a stake at him and he barely caught it fast enough. She had a second in her hand before he could even blink. "Hey! Put that thing down, you might hurt someone."  
"That's the idea." Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion, and she was looking at him like he was pure poison - not a trace of her usual reluctant affection. It was like a punch in the gut seeing her like that, but he knew she was in there somewhere, and he was determined to reach her.  
"Look can we maybe put down the sharp objects and talk for a sec?" Her response was to throw the second stake, which stuck in his chest, missing his heart by a hair. "Guess not."  
  
Bonnie drew a wicked-looking hunter's knife from her belt and started moving towards him. Damon pulled the stake from his chest with a gross, wet sucking sound and a gasp, and backed up a couple of paces. "Okay then. I'll talk, you listen."  
"You gonna tell me again how you wish I'd die so you can get Elena back?"  
His eyes darkened, and he repeated the words he'd said to his brother an hour ago.  
"Sometimes when you love someone you have to go to extremes."  
He wasn't talking about Elena.  
"Did you think that would hurt me? That I'd care enough about what you think that it would make a difference?"  
She stalked closer with the knife, and he continued to back up, only stopping when his back hit the tree behind him.  
"Got you to wake up, didn't it?"  
Bonnie's response was to lunge forward and swipe at him with the knife. He dodged out of the way and avoided the slash spilling his guts over the forest floor, but it still bit through his shirt and into skin, drawing a hiss from him.  
  
When she made to repeat the motion, slashing higher, he caught her wrist in his hand and struggled against her new supernatural strength as the knife fell to the forest floor.  
"Careful, Bon. That tickles, and not in the good way." She aimed a knee at his groin and he deflected it with his leg. " _Oof_. My safe word is 'vervain', just FYI."  
He didn't catch the fist that came flying at his face, smashing into his cheek hard enough to crack bone. She used his momentary surprise to throw him behind her across the clearing, his body crashing with no small amount of force into the tree stump at its centre: One that in another life, marked the grave her friends had made for her.  
"You still think this a joke? You think I won't kill you?"  
"On the contrary, Bon-Bon." He scrambled to his knees, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "I know you will. That's why I'm here."  
"Did you think somehow that offering yourself up would work in your favour? That it would buy time for the others? For your brother?"  
"This isn't about them."  
"Of course not. Because everything's always about you, isn't it?"  
"Actually this time it's about you." He let his eyes meet hers, desperately searching for the Bonnie he knew and coming up empty "I'm here because," he sat back on his haunches. "If I'm gonna die - if this is my last night on earth, I can't think of a single person I'd rather be with than you. And if you're gonna kill everyone who ever cared about you, you'd better start with me. And I think you know why."  
  
Bonnie was unmoved.  
"Is that supposed to mean something to-"  
Damon interrupted her mid-sentence.  
"You recognise this place? This stump you just almost broke my back on?"  
He saw the recognition flare in her eyes, but it was cold.  
"My grave."  
"Yeah. A memorial to one of the many lives of Bonnie Bennett. Last time around, I didn't have much to contribute. You were just Elena's friend - occasionally useful for a spell or when we needed someone to throw herself on a wire, but you didn't mean much to me."  
"Not much changed."  
" _Everything_ changed, Bonnie." The emotion in his voice contrasted with the emptiness of hers. "We hated each other, then I tolerated you, then we became friends, then lines started to blur in a way that was becoming _really_ problematic for someone whose best friend is supposed to be my endgame. Then I chickened out and desiccated, and you shacked up with the Diet Coke version of me. And trust me when I say that seeing you with him hurt me more than anything you can do with something sharp and pointy." Damon took in a breath. "So let me do what I never got the chance to do before, when I put down that grimoire because I had no connection with you to mourn losing."  
  
He stood and reached into his pocket, prompting Bonnie to aim a crossbow at him, but she lowered it a little when instead of attacking her, he laid down a little metal token that hit the stump with a soft clink.  
"This is for Judgy Bonnie." As his hand moved away, she saw it was a little metal shoe, like the one from... "When I cheated at Monopoly, you acted like I'd robbed a real bank, and you never let me forget it. Judgy Bonnie can hold a grudge like nobody's business, especially when someone lets her or her friends down. But she always held me accountable. Made me face up to my failings. Made me a better person."

Next he pulled out a big, plastic peace sign necklace - it was the one she'd worn to the 60s decade dance, the night she'd thought her spell to save Elena from Klaus would kill her. "This is for Loyal Bonnie. Fiercely protective and dedicated to those she cares about. This is the Bonnie that laid down her life countless times for people who didn't deserve it. For the Bonnie that refused to open her eyes last night if it meant she might hurt those she cared about."  
  
"Last but not least." Damon opened his flask and took a swig, before pouring the remainder onto the stump. "This is for a Bonnie only I ever knew - one I shared something dark and hopeless with." He could see the recognition in her eyes when the smell hit her - oaky and rich and uncomfortably familiar: The bourbon from their suicide pact. "A century and a half, and I've never been that raw... that vulnerable with anyone." He laughed, but there was no humour in it. "'Kill the bottle then kill ourselves'. I never told you what it really was - it was the ultimate motivation. Because it tied your life to mine. Kept me going for your sake. Because no matter how bad things got, they'd never be bad enough that I'd give up on you."  
  
"How poetic that the bottle's done now, then." He sought desperately for a hint of something else beneath the cold steel of her voice, but found nothing. "Except you're the only one that's dying tonight."  
"See, that's where you're wrong." His voice lacked his usual edge of sarcasm. "Because when you kill me - when you cross that line - that'll kill whatever's left of Bonnie in there. Kinda romantic, dontcha think? Like Romeo and Juliet, if Juliet was a homicidal maniac."  
"And if Romeo was a selfish evil prick vampire in love with her best friend."  
"Rosaline was Juliet's cousin, not her best friend, but close enough. See? I'm not entirely uncultured." Damon argued back.  
Bonnie bent down to pick up the knife, blade still tinged crimson with his blood.  
"I think I've listened long enough." She brought herself back to full height. "Get up." She didn't say anything else, but there was something implied in her eyes: A crack in the marble.  
 _'Don't make me kill you on your knees'_  
It wasn't much, but it was something. And Damon would take any chance he could get.

He rose to his feet.  
"You want to put a stake through my heart? Fine, it belongs to you anyway."  
Damon took a step towards her, hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.  
"Shut up."  
He could've sworn he almost heard that crack in her resolve widening.  
"Elena was my Rosaline. 'Did my heart ever love til now?'"  
"Shut up!"  
 _Crack_  
"Will I set up my everlasting rest,  
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars  
From this world-wearied flesh?"  
Another step towards her.  
"Stop."  
Even on that one word, her voice was sharp, angry... No longer emotionless and dull.  
"Eyes, look your last."  
At his next step towards her, Bonnie took half a step backwards.  
"Arms, take your last embrace."  
She all but bared her teeth.  
 _C'mon, Bon. Fight it._  
"And, lips - o you doors of breath..."  
"SHUT UP!"  
"Make me."  
 _Seal with a righteous kiss_  
  
Damon's lips crashed hard against Bonnie's, his hands moving to her arms and holding her fast as she struggled. It wasn't a sweet kiss - Far from it. It was fierce, almost violent: The lingering metallic taste of blood in his mouth from being thrown across the clearing melding with new as she fought back with her teeth. After a few seconds, she threw him off, and he landed with a grunt back against the stump, knocking the mementos he'd placed to the ground. Before he could stand to prepare for her attack, she was on him, knife biting into his throat...

And lips pressing hard to his.

The force of her slammed him back so hard it knocked the (thankfully unnecessary) breath from his lungs. Only when her he felt the bones of her kneecaps scrape against his hips did he realise she was straddling him.  
And _yeah, okay, the kiss was supposed to get her to fight back, but not like this. Not_ -  
He flinched back as the blade at his throat dug in deeper, pulling away enough to barely break the kiss as he grabbed at her wrist to get some reprieve from the bite of that wicked knife. Her eyes blazed green, a wash of fury and hatred warring with passion and need... His Bonnie, the real Bonnie, was still in there.  
And she was fighting the Huntress.  
  
Hope and dread warred with one another in Damon's chest at the realisation: Chances were he was just delaying the inevitable; that no matter what, Bonnie would lose the fight, and the Huntress would burn her from the inside out until there wasn't a shred of her left; that he would die here in this clearing, killed by the shell of the woman he loved. Even if by some miracle she won, her autonomy restored, there was a better than good chance she was doing so motivated by anger - that she would hate him for this. After everything he'd done, he couldn't blame her if she did. But there were only two motivators strong enough to pull her through this, and if he couldn't have her love, he'd take every scrap of venom and fury she had - anything to keep her just a little longer.  
  
So he kissed her hard; took everything she gave and returned it in kind. One hand was still shaking with the strain of keeping her knife from sinking into his flesh, but the other he slid into her hair, nails pressing into her scalp with bruising promise. Her body slid down, her nipples palpable against his skin even with the layers of clothing between them, until her hips were flush with his, even their combined two layers of denim unable to conceal the searing heat of her from where his burgeoning erection stood painfully constricted in his jeans. When his hips bucked up in response, the sound she made was one of pure unadulterated need, and he hissed as the bite of the knife finally receded from his neck, Bonnie's priorities evidently shifted as she used it to slice open his t-shirt, exposing his bare skin to her hands. Damon mirrored her, ripping her own shirt from collar to waist and slipping his hand inside, exploring the newly bared swathe of soft, supple skin. When she shivered, it wasn't from the cold, gooseflesh trailing in the wake of his hands. When his hand slid into her bra and brushed a thumb over her nipple, she gasped into his mouth, her knife falling forgotten to the forest floor.  
  
It was when her hands ceased their rough mapping of his chest and grappled for his belt buckle that an element of reality broke through the cracks of Damon's lustful haze. He wouldn't deny the shock of pure want that blazed through him at the realisation that she planned to ride him right there - that there was a feral and untamed part of him that revelled in her rough handling. But this wasn't just another faceless body to slake his lust on, this was _Bonnie_ , and she deserved better. It didn't matter if it was gritty hate sex with leaves in her hair and dirt on their skin, he would make it good for her if it killed him.  
  
Summoning as much of his strength as he could he threw her backward and off of his lap with no small amount of force. He surged forward before she could spring to her feet, pinning her beneath him as he kissed his way down the exposed skin of her chest (painstakingly avoiding her neck, knowing no matter how good it would feel to run a firm pass of his tongue over it, the Huntress would have no mercy for a vampire at her jugular). She was shaking with what appeared to be restraint - fighting the part of her that wanted to strike while he was vulnerable. He inwardly cursed modern fashion and, for expediency, ripped her skinny jeans from hip to crotch, before making similar short work of her underwear.  
  
The full onslaught of her arousal hit Damon like a mack truck, the scent of aching _want_ dizzying in its sheer intensity. He knew all too well the thrill of a hunt, how good felt to be the apex predator, and more times than he'd admit he found himself hard and leaking in his jeans when he went in for the kill, so this shouldn't be surprising, but _damn_. He knew she would have less than no patience for teasing or gentle touches, and any space he gave her to collect her thoughts could only hinder Bonnie's fight to reclaim herself, so he dove into her with a fierce passion. Her cry at the first insistent laving pass of his tongue was a desperate keen that could have split the skies. He was bowled over by how wet she was - juicy and sweet as a peach - and he couldn't contain a sharp whine of his own as strong thighs clamped down around his head, fingers twisting into his hair in a vice-like grip. In response, he threw everything he had into making her scream. Lips and tongue and brief flashes of teeth until he had to hold her down to stop her thrashing against his face. While his ferocity went into devouring her and his strength into restraining her, his sole concession to tenderness was stroking his fingers lightly at her side: A wordless way of conveying affection amidst the carnality.  
  
Something in the gesture railed against the Huntress who was still (he realised with a pang of despondency) very much in the driver's seat. Before he got the chance to taste her climax, her strength rallied and she threw him off. He landed harshly on his back, and she was a blur of motion as she climbed on top of him, pulling his torso upright so she could thoroughly and violently kiss the tang of her own arousal off of his tongue. Her fingers once again dove for his belt, but she wouldn't be distracted this time, and she almost tore his zipper getting it open to release his straining cock from its confines, testing the weight of him in her hand with a firm squeeze that would have been painful were he human. Damon almost lost his last thread of self control when she broke from their bruising kiss to cast a look down at his thick and leaking cock jutting between them and actually _licked her lips_. Her eyes met his for a brief moment - still brimming with a cold harshness that didn't belong there, and anything else he thought he saw could be chalked up to wishful thinking - before lifting her hips and sinking down, taking him to the hilt in one stroke.

He shivered from head to toe. _Fuck_. She felt like heaven.

Bonnie gave no quarter, riding him hard from the go, and though the position gave him little leverage, Damon gave as good as he got, hips snapping up sharply. For one second, he let himself forget that this wasn’t real, and instinctually he let his lips slip down to her neck, his hand cradling the other side as he mouthed at her pulse point. He felt her still just as he realised his mistake, and half a second later he was slammed hard back into the ground, the point of a stake pressed between his fourth and fifth ribs, halted there in warning by his quick reflexes. He didn’t so much as breathe as she regarded him with a mix of fury and want and something else that was so familiar it made his heart ache. A few seconds later, he released a tense breath as she reclaimed his lips and started to move again, their fingers still twined on the stake hovering over his chest. He savoured every movement of her hips, every half-moon mark left by her fingernails, in case it was the last, brutal touch he would feel from her. If he couldn't have her heart, he'd have her body until it broke.

Time lost all meaning as she sheathed him over and over, revulsion and ecstasy warring in her countenance allthewhile. Damon had no way of knowing if some part of her wanted this the same way he did, and it killed him to think it might just be her body responding. Still, when he ground hard against her on one upstroke and she shuddered with pleasure, he could’ve sworn he felt _her_ – distinctly his Bonnie – he sought confirmation in her eyes, but bit down his disappointment on finding them squeezed shut. It was then he noticed that in her enjoyment of him, her guard had relaxed somewhat, and she had relaxed her grip on the stake at his chest.

Damon took the opportunity of her distraction to take the reins - Huntress Bonnie had been calling the shots too long. Using the momentum of his hips, he flipped them over so Bonnie was underneath him. He couldn't make love to her the way he wanted - even in her current, blissed-out state, that would have been a step too far - so he settled for a rhythm almost equally as punishing as hers, but made sure to punctuate his harsh thrusts with regular grinds of his public bone against her clit. When she didn't immediately buck him off, fingernails instead reaching behind him to claw deep furrows in his back and mewling with pleasure and desperation, he reached a hand to her thigh, pulling one leg up to hook over his hip. With the new angle she took him deeper, and he relished the arch of her back and her stuttered breaths almost as much as the sensation.

When he felt her walls flutter around him, he gritted his teeth, determined to last out for her. While he managed to stave off his release, what he didn’t account for was the prickle of dark veins flushing under his eyes. It was only by sheer force of will that his fangs remained sheathed, but that was shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted – he knew that any reminder that he wasn’t human would break whatever fragile illusion had let her accept his touch. He watched the resentment and fury blister in her eyes, watched as she realised who (and what) was currently buried inside her…   
And watched her push past it.   
Watched as it washed out of her gaze and she pulled his lips back to hers, moaning harshly into his mouth as her need for him overruled her instinct to plunge the stake hanging limply from her fingers into his heart. The wooden weapon fell forgotten to the floor as she devoted both hands to the task of pulling him deeper, closer, like she would climb inside him if she could. It was hopeless then – he couldn’t have kept the words on his tongue if he’d tried.   
“I love you, Bonnie. Come back to me. Please, Bonnie.” It was more than a plea, it was a prayer. “I love you.”   
When her body seized under him, she reclaimed his lips, biting down hard enough to draw blood as her climax rolled over her, and the sharp stab of pain catapulted him hard over the edge, spilling inside her with a cry of her name.

Damon was terrified. In the seconds since their mutual release, she hadn’t thrown him off violently or reached for her stake, which he hoped was a good sign, but he was careful not to let himself hope for too much, one hand cradling her face and his thumb gently stroking her cheek as he cautiously opened his eyes. She was shaking like a leaf under him, but the stark emotionless sheen had disappeared from her gaze, replaced with an apprehensive confusion. Damon felt hope, elation.   
“Bonnie? Is it – are you…?”   
Her confusion turned to blatant horror.   
He was pushed from her with a distinctly human strength as she turned and retched, the acrid stench of bile cleansing the smell of sex from the air.   
It was clear that the Huntress was gone, but in its wake, Bonnie _reeked_ of fear, bewilderment and uncertainly coalescing into obvious panic and revulsion. Damon could only look on in horror.   
_What have I done?_   
The scene around him dawned in a moment of horrific clarity: Torn clothes, obvious signs of struggle, blood and violence... It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Bonnie looked up at him – eyes clear and vibrant and so perceptibly _her –_ as she wiped her mouth, dismay and disbelief taking over her face.

“Damon?”   
She was bleeding from a cut on her arm, trying to cover herself with the scraps of her clothing, and there were tears welling in her eyes. _God, no._   
He shook his head, this wasn’t right – it was never supposed to be like this. Guilt and remorse fell upon him with the force of a falling building, and he couldn’t bear another second of her scrutiny.   
“I can’t…” He scrambled to his feet, pulling his jeans up in some desperate attempt to shield himself from the hell he had created. His hands ran through his hair, pulling hard at the roots as he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”   
With that, he was gone – speed burning through his body as he sought to put as much distance as he could between himself and the wake of his destruction.

\---

Bonnie felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Her head was pounding, her mouth was dry, and her body was sore all over. She was laid on something hard and gritty, with something sharp digging in to her thigh, She was also pinned under an almost-reassuring weight that wasn’t contributing to her discomfort, but was doing little to aid her disorientation, and an undeniably-familiar fullness between her legs. Most concerning of all, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here (wherever ‘here’ was). Slowly, she let her eyes flutter open.

She took in a harsh breath at the sight of achingly familiar, concerned blue eyes before her. _Damon_. At once, everything came rushing back: Rayna, a sense of ‘otherness’ overtaking her, and then the hatred, the insatiable need to hunt, the thoughts of hurting those closest to her, of hurting Damon… She knew he would find her, would tear apart the world to get her back. She didn’t remember how she’d ended up here, but she remembered having a knife to Damon’s throat-  
“Bonnie? Is it – are you…?”   
_The Huntress._ She had been the Huntress, and she had tried to kill Damon. Had… She took in the stake lying beside her, the torn shreds of Damon’s shirt (no, not torn, _cut_ – cut with her knife), the bloodied blade, Damon’s bloodied torso and face…

Bonnie threw Damon off her just in time as her stomach violently expelled its contents onto the forest floor, the feeling of wrongness compounded by the sudden emptiness inside her. Damon was looking at her with a mix of trepidation and shock.  
 _What have I done?_   
Tears started to well in her eyes – she didn’t remember. God, had she _forced_ him? The thought of the Huntress taking the thing she had wanted the most in this world and corrupting it like that… Taken the unreturned feelings she had borne for him and twisted them to taint their power over her.   
She would rather it had killed her.

She looked over at Damon, and one look at his eyes confirmed her worst fears. Suddenly very aware of her own nakedness, she tried in vain to pull what was left of her clothes over her in a laughable attempt at modesty.   
“Damon?” She pleaded, not even knowing what she was pleading for.   
He got to his feet, gathering his clothes around himself and shaking his head disbelievingly.   
“I can’t…” _Please don’t leave me. Not like this._ She pleaded silently. “I’m sorry.”   
In a burst of vampire speed, she was alone, tears spilling onto the ground as she felt her world fall apart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV Bonnie from this point on

It took her an hour to put herself together enough to stand. Another two to stumble back through the woods to the manor. Her nudity and the ache between her legs haunted her every step - a constant reminder of how the Huntress had used her weakness to destroy everything she had cared for, mocking the unrequited desire that had been burning under her skin since the prison world. She knew there was nothing she could say to make this right, to undo what had been done, but she had to talk to him – had to at least try to explain.

But it wasn’t Damon who opened the door.   
“Bonnie?” Caroline exclaimed. “Oh my God, what happened? Did Damon find you?” Bonnie collapsed sobbing into her arms.   
“I think something awful happened.”   
“Did you-“ Caroline looked behind her, as if checking Stefan was out of earshot “Is he dead?”   
“No.” Bonnie noticed the moment Caroline took note of her dishevelled, torn clothing – the way her nostrils flared as she scented his scent on her (dripping out of her). The veins under her eyes turned black with fury.   
“I’m going to kill him with my bare hands and fangs.”   
“NO! I mean, he didn’t-“ Bonnie’s knees threatened to give out beneath her. “I think I – I think I - the Huntress - might have f-forced him.” Caroline looked like she didn’t know what to say. “He isn’t here?”   
Bonnie knew the answer – Caroline didn’t need to say it.   
“Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” She said, softly. Bonnie, who nodded numbly in response

In a guest room shower, Bonnie scrubbed her skin until it was raw, desperate to wash away the evidence of her betrayal. Her tears just kept falling, mingling with the shower droplets. After some time, there was a knock at the door.   
“I found some of Elena’s clothes. They should fit you.” Bonnie didn’t respond – the idea of wearing the love of his life’s clothes after what she had done made her sick. “Sweetie? Are you done?” Bonnie wagered Caroline could smell the blood where she had scrubbed too hard, and she shut off the faucet. She threw on a towel and opened the door, taking the proffered bundle from Caroline and sitting on the edge of the bed.   
“Thanks.”   
“Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.” Caroline said softly, sitting down beside her. “It was the Huntress.”   
Bonnie shook her head. “She knew how I felt about him. She did everything she could to destroy that.”   
“How you felt about him? You don’t mean…“ Caroline looked at her like she was a stranger. “Bonnie, Elena was your _friend_.”   
“Don’t you think I know that!” Bonnie cried. “That’s why I could never let him know.”   
“So why would the Huntress-“   
“Because he was a risk to her. Ever since the prison world, ever since he brought me back. She knew that as long as he would fight for me, I would fight for him.” She wept silently. “You should have seen how he looked at me. There’s no going back.”

Caroline pulled her in close and held her until her tears abated, then left her to get some sleep, but it was futile when she could still feel the ghost of him inside her, taste the bourbon from his kiss, and when every time she closed her eyes, she saw the way Damon had looked at her. She pulled out her phone and dialled his number, unsurprised when he didn’t answer. She hung up before the voicemail kicked in, unsure what to say, and started to tap out a message.   
_Can we talk?_   
Twenty minutes later, she sent another.   
_Please just let me know you’re okay_   
An hour after that.   
_I can’t lose you_   
Eventually, exhaustion won out, her dreams filled with a half-remembered violence she hoped was the product of her imagination. She awoke the next morning to no missed calls and no messages.

Weeks passed, and while Damon didn’t return, Bonnie’s memories began to. They came to her in her dreams, and at first she would have given anything to be spared them: All she saw was the violence, the force, the way they’d hurt one another. But the more she remembered, the more she started to see things that didn’t add up. Their… union… was still full of hostility, the aggression more than palpable, but there was also tenderness: Care and passion and affection in his touch that made her heart break. And _pleasure._ Intense, _mutual_ pleasure that had her waking daily with slickness coating her thighs and an ache to be filled. He wasn’t just a willing participant, he was _enthusiastic._ She sent more and more messages to him that went unreturned, more desperate for answers than ever before.

“I don’t understand.” She lamented to Caroline. “If it wasn’t- If it was consensual, why is he avoiding me?”   
“Beats me. If Damon couldn’t handle talking to a woman after sex, he’d have moved to Antarctica by now.” Bonnie glared at her, and she gave her a look in response that said ‘ _What? You know I’m right’._ “You still don’t remember who initiated it, or how you got rid of the Huntress?”   
Bonnie shook her head. “I just get fragments. A kiss, a touch…” _A deep, guttural moan that made her cross her legs in desperation every time she thought about it_ … “I just wish I could talk to him.”   
While it had been far from what she would ever have wanted for their first time together, they had both _wanted_ it – that much was evident. So why did he leave?   
“It’ll come back, sweetie. And so will Damon, I’m sure. Just give it time.”

Bonnie couldn’t have said what had possessed her to start sleeping in his bed, only that the smell of him lingering on the sheets was a comfort to her in his absence the way no well-meaning words could ever have been. The first night she’d climbed into his bed at 3am with a warm sheen of unsatisfied sweat clinging to her skin, she’d felt guilty. But as time wore on, she instead started to fantasise about him coming home to find her there. In her more lucid moments, she imagined him leaning against the doorjamb with a lazy smirk on his face. “ _Why, Bon-Bon. If you wanted a sleepover, all you had to do was ask.”_ On the nights where her reason had left her entirely, she imagined a more passionate reunion, her fingers between her legs desperately seeking to quell the fire under her skin as she breathed his scent from the pillows. For whatever reason, sleeping in his bed made her dreams more vivid, more complete than ever.   
Until one night, all her questions were answered.

Bonnie’s dreams usually started in the midst of their passion: She would slip into unconsciousness to an already mounting pleasure: Her lips pressed bruisingly to his, his head between her legs, him already moving inside her… But not this time. This time, there was nothing hidden: Saw the mementos he’d left at her grave, heard the words he’d quoted from _Romeo and Juliet_ , and then, once their blistering passion had come to it’s crescendo:   
_“I love you, Bonnie. Come back to me.”_   
She sat bolt upright as she woke gasping desperately for breath, trying to determine if what she’d dreamed was real, or if it had been no more than wishful thinking.. It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t reconcile the words he’d said, the way he’d kissed her, the reverence and tenderness of his touch, with the horrified way he’d looked at her afterwards. The way he’d bolted.   
But somehow, she knew it was true – she _felt_ the truth of it in the ghost of his touch.   
_Damon loves me._

“Bonnie?” Caroline’s voice sounded from the hall. “I heard you moving. Are you awake?”   
_Damon loves me._   
“Yeah.” Caroline entered the room, and Bonnie couldn’t help the effervescent joy spilling from her. “Care, I remembered something – and it seems crazy and impossible, but I just-“ Her eyes caught on the envelope in her hands. “What’s that?”   
Caroline shifted uneasily.   
“It arrived this morning. Stefan got one, too.” Caroline’s expression was one of sympathy. “It’s from Damon.”   
As Bonnie took it from her, she couldn’t keep the tremor from her hands. Her heart thudded in her chest and she swallowed thickly as she struggled to form the words to ask the thing she feared above all.   
“Is this- I mean, is he-?”   
_Please don’t be a suicide note._   
“He’s alive. Just…” Caroline sought the right words and came up wanting. “I’ll give you some privacy.”   
Bonnie looked at the flowing, elegant script she would recognise blind, and ran her fingers over the ink; The door clicked shut as she tore the envelope open, taking a steadying breath before reading:

_"Dear Bonnie,  
  
I'm too much of a coward to read your messages, but the fact you're sending them means you're alive, and you're you again. You wouldn't be either of those if I didn't do what I did, so I can’t regret it the way I should. But I hope it comforts you to know that however much you hate me for it, I hate myself more._

I've spent more time than I'd care to admit thinking about telling you how I feel. And because I'm a pervert, probably more time than that dreaming about how our first time would be. Suffice to say I never wanted either of those things to go the way they did. I told myself all the way through that it didn't matter as long as I got you back. It was only when you looked at me that I realised I had betrayed your trust in the worst way… I've never wanted to flip that humanity switch so bad as I did in that moment, but I knew you'd hunt me down. Drag me back. Make me face up to it.

And I can't.

So instead, by the time you read this, I'll be a couple of weeks into desiccation. For the long haul, this time. I know: This is a shitty goodbye, and you deserve better. You deserved a lot of things I wanted to give you but never could.

_  
I won't be there to fix it next time you do something dumb and self-sacrificing, so stop martyring yourself and go live your life. Go to Paris with Enzo. Or don't, and give the whole 'married-with-kids' thing a shot with some boring normal guy. Die old and happy. If I wake up and find out you didn't, I'll be pissed._

_Yours, always,  
Damon"_

Bonnie creased the note in her hand as her tears fell.  
 _He thought he had-_   
Just as she had thought the same. And now he was desiccating. Leaving her. Again.   
She scrunched her hand into a fist, crumpling the note into a ball.   
_No._   
She wouldn’t let it happen again. _Couldn’t_ let it happen. Not now – not after everything. Not now she knew what it was to be loved by him. Bonnie threw back the sheets and pulled on her jeans. Damon had risked everything to save her – his life, her friendship, his heart. She owed him the same in return.


	3. Chapter 3

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was in the letter to Stefan: Damon would need to tell someone where he was – someone who he could trust with his vulnerability, and who would be around when the time came to wake him. Bonnie also knew that Stefan would burn the letter to stop it from falling into the wrong hands; for a witch, it was a simple matter of an incantation spoken over the hearth to reconstitute it. Bonnie was prepared to travel to the ends of the earth to find him, so when she read the location, she couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief: Damon knew that the last place she’d look was right under their noses.   
It took her less than half an hour to reach the tomb.   
Seeing him lying there on the crypt so utterly still, dark veins stark against greying alabaster skin, Bonnie’s heart lurched. He looked for all the world like he was truly dead, and it took a moment for her to remind herself that he wasn’t (well, no more than usual). She took his cold, limp hand in hers.   
_I’m here. I came for you._  
Releasing his hand, she drew the small blade from her pocket, pressing it to her wrist, wincing as it bit into her skin. She knew that it took a lot of blood to bring a vampire back from desiccation, and she was taking the chance that he would have the self-control to be able to stop, but there was something poetic in the fact that he’d given a part of himself to save her, and now she was doing the same. She pressed the wound to his unmoving lips, and waited.

Seconds felt like aeons as nothing happened, and for one horrible moment she feared something had gone wrong – that he was truly dead. But then she saw his skin start to colour, his veins turn black, and felt the pinch of his fangs as they descended. She whined reflexively at the pull when he stated to drink in earnest, hands shooting up to grasp her and hold her wrist firm to his mouth. Blue eyes shot open at the sound, flaring in recognition as he took her in. The effort it took to stop was patently obvious, and when he released her, it was with a pained grunt.  
“Bonnie?” He wiped the blood from his lips as he sat upright, leaving a red stain on the heel of his hand. Disbelief and hope and pain warred in his face. He cradled her injured wrist like it was made of glass. “What are you-?”  
Her slap echoed in the dark of the tomb as it cut him off. He didn’t have time to respond, as she seized him in a kiss, pouring in every ounce of her love, her anger, her passion before pulling back to speak.  
“You don’t get to do this again. You don’t get to leave me alone again.”  
“I don’t-“ He looked at her with unshed tears and confusion. As far as he was concerned, she should hate him.  
“I know what you think you did, but you’re wrong. You didn’t do a single thing I didn’t want from you – you gave me the strength to fight her. You _saved_ _me_. It just took me some time to remember what happened.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “Did you mean everything you said to me that night?”  
His eyes answered for him before he could say a word. “All of it.”  
“Then kiss me.”

This kiss wasn’t like any other they’d shared. It wasn’t frantic, or needful, or desperate: It was soft, gentle, tentative. It wasn’t a battle for dominance, and no-one’s life was on the line. It just… was. There was still an unmistakeable passion behind it – she doubted Damon was capable of anything less – but where their tryst in the woods had been a blazing wildfire, this smouldered – tingled - heat prickling at her fingertips and licking up her spine.  
This should have been their first kiss.  
“When?” He breathed against her lips. She felt a tear run down his cheek and wet her thumb. “How long?” She knew what he meant – _When did you fall in love with me? How long have you kept it from me?_ Luckily, it was a question that was easy enough to answer, and she smiled against his lips.  
“May 10th 1994.”  
She couldn’t have pinpointed _which_ May 10th, but at some point in those months they spent trapped, everything changed, and he became more than the friend she’d never known she needed: He became the future she’d never dared to wish for. From the way he returned her smile into their kiss, she knew he felt the same.

His hands slid up - one into her hair, the other around her waist – and she mirrored his movement, pulling him in closer against her. His body was utter perfection pressed up against her – flesh soft and yielding in all the right places, but hard as marble in others. Their touches were chaste enough, but his hands set a fire in their wake, and soon the kiss became more heated. Damon’s lips moved to her cheek, down her jaw. There was something she needed to do, and she needed to do it fast before she lost her ability to think.  
“ _Nobis donet in patria._ ” She whispered.  
A cloud of unnatural haze enveloped them, the cool tingle of it on their skin enough to draw Damon’s attention from lavishing her skin.  
“Uh, Bonnie?” He questioned.  
“Our first time was in the woods.” They materialised in a familiar bedroom, in a familiar bed, sheets still rumpled from her waking there that morning. “I’ll be damned if I let our second be in a tomb.”  
He stilled, his grip on her loosening a little.  
“Bon… We don’t have to-“ He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I understand if you want to talk first. If you want to wait…”  
“I don’t.” Bonnie had never been so sure of anything in her life. Yes, they had a lot to talk about – not the least of which was the spectre of Elena and the sleeping curse hanging over them – but right now, with Damon looking at her like she was made of gold and his fingers brushing her hair from her face with the kind of affection she’d only ever dreamed he might show her… Talking couldn’t be further down her list of priorities.

Bonnie pushed Damon’s body back into the mattress with her own, and the way he melted against her, yielding to the press of her with no resistance as their lips met again, only served to reaffirm that this would not be the same as their first tryst. His hands skimmed over her sides and up her back in a slow, sensual exploration, with just a hint of pressure bearing her down into him that made her toes curl. His lips dragged against hers, gentle and unhurried, and she shivered with the realisation that this time around they wouldn’t be rushed – _he_ wouldn’t be rushed. He unbuttoned her shirt and slid it from her shoulders one by one, his lips marking every inch of skin newly exposed in a way that was almost reverent. Her blood sang under her skin in response, and her own hands sought bare skin under his shirt in a wordless plea to feel more of him: One he was only too happy to oblige, lifting himself just enough to pull his shirt over his head and cast it aside before returning to his worship of her body with fervour. His veins darkened noticeably when hips lips ghosted past her collarbone to her neck, and Bonnie shivered as she felt the barest hint of fangs. She knew (in spite of her own experience to the contrary) the rumours that a vampire’s bite at the neck or thigh could be sexual, and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about what it might feel like if Damon had bitten her in lust rather than anger all those years ago. Maybe tonight she would find out. His tongue pressed firmly into her pulse point just as his hand slipped into her bra and she gasped at the new sensation, her fingers digging into the muscle of his chest in response. He pulled her so that she was sitting astride his lap, and started to mouth at her breast through the thin lace of her bra. Bonnie’s legs squeezed together reflexively, and with the way he was positioned beneath her, she felt his erection hot and straining at her core, and both of them moaned deeply.

It was like a switch flipped between them in that moment, and whilst there still wasn’t the same pressured urgency they had experienced in the forest, in its place was a fierce _need_. In a burst of unnatural speed and strength, Damon turned them so that he was on top of her, her bra discarded, and her hip hooked over his so he could grind into her as he continued to lavish affection on her breasts. Her hand instinctively dove into his hair, tightening her fingers in it until she felt his groan against her skin. The friction of him was heaven, but it wasn’t enough – not when she’d been dreaming of him inside her night after night. As if he could read her thoughts, she felt his hand slide down between them, flicking open the button of her jeans and dipping below the waistline of her underwear. Even Bonnie was shocked at how soaked his fingers found her, two digits sliding easily between her folds and teasing at her clit. Her whole body convulsed in response as he teased her, alternating firm strokes with barely-there touches. Occasionally his nostrils would flare, and it would be followed with a firmer touch or deeper kiss (or, on one or two blissful occasions, the faint impression of blunt, human teeth on her skin); it dawned on her that he must have been able to scent not only her arousal now, but also the remnants of her lust on the sheets from those lonely nights dreaming of him, melding with his own scent and touching something primal in his nature.

Were it not for her yearning to have him closer, Bonnie could have come on nothing but the press of his fingertips massaging at her apex. So when Damon finally sank a finger inside her, swiftly followed by a second when he realised one wasn’t enough in her current state of wanting, it wasn’t long before she was clawing at his back with need. When his thumb brushed her clit as he pressed into her, her back arched and she held her breath. She didn’t want to come – not now, not when she felt so empty. It took more willpower than she’d like to admit to push him back, her hands delving with single-minded purpose to flick open the button of his jeans and unzip his fly. With an unnatural grace, he somehow leaned in to the brush of her hands with a shudder whilst lifting her hips to remove her own jeans – something that would have been an awkward endeavour for any normal guy, but for Damon felt as easy as breathing.

With the Huntress at the helm, Bonnie hadn’t been able to savour Damon’s pleasure the way she had always longed to: An opportunity she wasn’t going to pass up twice. Damon let her push him over onto his back, eyeing her with blown-black pupils that spoke to the depth of his desire. Moving to straddle his thighs, Bonnie unleashed her desire on his body, running her hands appreciatively over the carved panes of his chest. She bit her lip, reaching lower to press his jeans down below his hips (no underwear, to her complete lack of surprise), and taking him in her hand. His hips bucked reflexively as she gave an experimental squeeze, savouring the warm weight of him in her palm (he was even bigger than she remembered – no wonder she had felt him for days afterward). When she rolled her thumb over his tip, spreading the bead of wetness she found there with a languid stroke, he made a delicious sound of wanting that went right through her. He watched her with restraint and fascination as she worked him, his body responding to her so wonderfully. When she had made love to Jeremy – her sole other point of reference, she was sad to say – he had reacted just as you would expect a teenage boy to react to her touch: So sensitive that he had been on the edge of coming too soon for her to enjoy it, often spurting over her hand in over-eagerness. But Damon’s restraint was of a different kind entirely, one she could feel in every stroke: He wanted to _devour_ her. And not just her body, or her blood – it was like he wanted everything she was. More importantly, she wanted to give it to him, and wanted his in return: His desire, his surrender, his love… But right now, she’d settle for his pleasure.

She worked him slowly and fervently, feeling his gratification in the canting of his hips, and watching it bloom on his face: What she worked on him now felt more powerful than any magic she had ever wrought, and still it wasn’t enough. She thought about the zealous passion with which Damon had used his mouth on her in the forest, and knew she wouldn’t be satisfied until she had done the same for him. Damon watched with adoration as she dipped down to taste him, eyes squeezing shut in breathless ecstasy as he let out a filthy string of curses that made her lips turn up in a smirk as they sank down around his cock. What she lacked in experience, she made up for in sheer enthusiasm, determined to render him as insensible and wild with passion as she had been under his ministrations. His breathing deepened as she savoured the taste of him, fingers tangling and tightening in the sheets beside her as she imagined them in her hair. The stretch of her lips around made her practically gush with wetness in the knowledge she would soon feel him where she wanted him most, and from the smutty groan that escaped him and the darkened veins beneath his eyes, he could scent every drop.

Even Damon’s restraint had limits, and Bonnie felt a thrill course through her when it snapped and he flipped her over, discarding his jeans and her underwear faster than she could blink. With nothing but skin between them, Bonnie felt every brush of his body over hers like an electric current, a delicious hint of the friction they both needed as he pressed himself over her, kissing her hard enough to make her dizzy. She ached for him, and spending a second longer without him inside her was unthinkable. Reaching a hand down between the press of their bodies, she set about righting that wrong, lining him up with her entrance. His eyes met hers, and she implored him with her gaze, urging him to give her what her body had been crying out for since the moment they’d been parted.

He obliged her readily, filling her to the brim in one long, slow roll of his hips – one that went so deep that she could barely breathe. She could feel him trembling, his stuttered breaths at her neck as he gave her time to adjust to the stretch: _If heaven were a feeling, it would be this_. Recapturing his lips with her own, he swallowed her moan as he started to move - smooth, powerful twists of his hips that had her whole body tingling from head to toe. Even though her mind was barely coherent, her body moved instinctually to meet his, thighs bracketing his with tenacity as her hands drank their fill – one at his back, seeking ever more skin, as the other slid against his scalp, pouring ever more sensuality into their kiss. He hooked her thigh over his hip, and she bit back a cry of ecstasy at the changed angle, her fingertips reflexively digging into the muscle of his shoulder. She was impossibly tighter around him like this, but he also ground against her clit when he was fully seated, making her see stars. Perhaps the only thing better than feeling him was _hearing_ him – the soft panting moans and the catches of his breath, his groans and soft curses when she clenched around him, the sweet, ardent words he whispered in her ear and against her lips. It made her want to weep for every wasted day where they hadn’t acted on their wanting, every moment she could have had with him, every morning she could have woken up beside him with a delicious ache between her thighs.

On one particularly long, grinding thrust, Bonnie’s back arched, and it was only then she realised the impending bliss cresting under her skin. She had held back once before, but with Damon inside her, there was nothing to hold her back. She tightened her fingers in his hair in warning, and in response, he pulled back until he was almost all the way out before pressing back in in an unfathomably deep stroke, grinding hard against her clit as his teeth ghosted over her neck. She near-screamed her release as her orgasm ripped through her, eyes locked with pools of deep blue as Damon worked her through it with masterful finesse. Whenever she touched herself, she always had to pull back the moment her orgasm hit, too sensitive for even the lightest touch, but Damon seemed to know just how to change the angle and depth of his thrusts to prolong and intensify her pleasure in a way she’d never even thought possible. She’d never felt pleasure like it; if he were human, he’d be wearing her fingerprints on his back for days.

Immediately after her body had ceased burning with aftershocks, Bonnie let out a gasp as Damon suddenly withdrew from her, leaving her bereft. Fortunately, it was only a moment later that he gently turned her onto her side and lifted her thigh, entering her again – this time from behind. This new angle didn’t allow him to thrust as deeply as before, and it obviously didn’t result in stimulation to her now-oversensitive clit, but from behind, Damon could hit her G-spot with unerring precision. Perhaps just as importantly, no longer having to bear his weight, it freed Damon’s hands up to roam over her body, drinking in every curve of her as he thrust. She could tell that his self-control had been put to the test in sustaining himself through her climax – his thrusts were more punctuated, his rhythm stuttering. He was hanging on by a thread, and would succumb to his own orgasm before she would reach a second – something Bonnie wouldn’t begrudge for a moment, but as his lips grazed her neck, she realised there was one desire he hadn’t yet sated in her.

  
“Bite me.” She ground out. Damon’s rhythm faltered.  
“Are you sure?”  
She’d never been more sure of anything. She wanted every part of him inside her she could take.  
”Please.” Bonnie bared her neck as best she could.  
Because he was behind her, she couldn’t see his veins blacken, but she felt his fangs descend, sharp points grazing her throat and eliciting a moan of anticipation. There was a heartbeat, two, before she felt the now-familiar pinch of his bite, followed by something new: Something _incredible._

It was obvious from the first draw of her blood that this was very, _very_ different from when he had fed from her before. His draw pulsed in time with her heartbeat, and she felt him everywhere, right down to the tips of her fingers, like he was flowing in her veins, burning through her like cleansing fire. And the pulse felt good – better than good, it was _rapturous_. Her whole body tensed, and the sensations in her came to a crescendo – his cock throbbing inside her, his body writhing against hers, his mouth at her neck, his fingers that had snaked down to her clit, and that glorious sensation that permeated her very core… Bonnie exploded in a white-hot inferno, her entire body quaked with a force that erupted in a cry of his name. She heard him moan with a mouthful of her blood (a sound far sexier than it had any right to be) and felt him pulse inside her, filling her as her cunt squeezed around hum, milking him for every drop he had to give. She was distantly aware of him bringing his wrist to her lips, feeding her his own blood, bringing her back to herself as she came down from her high.

Sated and content, they idled with lazy touches and soft kisses.  
“You plan on waking me up like that all the time?”  
Damon’s lip quirked up in amusement as Bonnie rolled her eyes.  
“Only if you want to stay in bed until noon every day.”  
“Right, and then you’d miss out on my pancakes. Can’t have that.”  
“Just because I love you, doesn’t mean I suddenly love your pancakes.” The look in Damon’s eyes turned from playful to something softer. “What?”

  
“Gonna take a while to get used to hearing you say those words.” He looked at her with shining eyes. “Never thought I’d hear them from you.”  
“Neither did I.” Bonnie admitted. “I guess we have the Huntress to thank for that.”  
“Give us _some_ credit – we would’ve figured it out sooner or later.”  
“Maybe. But I like ‘sooner’.” Bonnie ran a thumb across his lower lip, which was still swollen from their kiss.  
“So do I.”  
Damon recaptured her lips, and suddenly in spite of everything that had passed before, Bonnie wasn’t feeling quite so sated anymore. They had a lot to figure out – Elena, the sleeping curse, how to tell their friends and family…  
But they had one another, everything else could wait.


End file.
